A notable insider sale of the shares of Nanometrics was disclosed in a form 4 document filed with the SEC today, showing — Dr Timothy J Stultz, Director — disposed of 40,000 shares in the company having a market value of approximately $1,059,200. There have been 4 insiders with buy/sell transactions in the past 90 days prior to this filing. All of these trades have been sales resulting in the disposition of 7,440 company shares. Adding the most recent activity to this 90-day history indicates insider trades have seen net sales of 47,440 shares and have averaged 9,488 shares per transaction over this time period.

Over the last 90 days, the number of insider buy/sell trades at Nanometrics is higher than the 24-company peer group average. Semiconductor Equipment & Testing peer group saw 37 buy/sell trades during this period for an average of 1.5 transactions per company. The number of shares per buy/sell trade for Nanometrics insiders was also higher. Within the peer group there were 11,000 shares purchased and 257,068 shares sold with company insiders selling 6,650 shares on average.

The data obtained in evaluating and writing in this story eliminates all trading activity reported to the SEC that involves awards, options, exercise of derivative securities, company buy-backs, taxes, gifts, shares acquired via inheritance and tenders or exchange offers.